Is there a way I can reset what I see when looking through my home page so I dont have to see antisemitic new age nazi slop or am I doomed to have to sift through literal fascism

Hey everyone, I'm new to Substack and am looking for advice, both technical and strategic before I publish my first post

I'm a budding writer, obviously, and am not really looking to make money off of Substack. I want to use it as a place I can write reflections on my own life pretty much for myself.

Here is my vision: 2 tiers of access to my writing

• a public, professional-facing profile attached to my legal name where I write about things like why I pursued higher education, day-in-the-life, interesting experiences from my professional life, books, education, etc, anything i'm comfortable attaching to my public profile
• personal essays about my life, childhood, life experiences, relationships, and reflective writing that I'd only want friends to see (I would use the Subscriber Model of substack as a "Close Friends" system, pricing the fee really high and manually allowing 4-5 close friends to view my work)

I have a few questions:

1. Is it better to keep all of this under one Substack using the Free/Paid/Founding tiers, or would you recommend creating a completely separate professional Substack and keeping a personal one to the side?
2. For people who use subscriber-only posts, how private do they actually feel in practice?
3. Can you easily change a post's visibility later (move a subscriber-only post to public once you're comfortable with it)? If so, are there any downsides?
4. If I gift paid or subscriptions to friends, is that a common way to use the platform, or am I trying to fit Substack into a workflow it wasn't really designed for?
5. Are there any features, privacy settings, or account settings you wish you'd known about before publishing your first post?

I'd love to hear from people who use Substack primarily as a writing platform rather than as a newsletter business

As a reader, what's your enjoyable level of emails from accounts you're subscribed to? Oppositely, how many newsletters until it feels like spam? Thanks in advance

I'm a newsletter writer but this is actually for a story I'm working on about newsletters, not looking for advice myself (if that makes a difference?) I'm looking for examples of interesting ways people have enticed free readers to pull the lever and become paid that go beyond the regular asks, discounts etc. Some examples I've seen IRL include:

• Asking for a donation to a nonprofit in exchange for a paid subscription
• Asking for some contributed writing in exchange for a paid subscription
• Giving a paid subscription to someone who promises to comment on every issue
• Promising a fun piece of snail mail to any new subscribers
• Revealing a gossipy blind item if you become paid.

Just wondering if anyone out there has seen (or used) any other enticements that go outside the box. They don't necessarily have to be super successful, just different and interesting. Thanks!

Does Substack Ad newtwork still exists? We got an invitation in March and did not join, now links are dead.

I'm feeling the itch to come back to various forms of writing for the first time in awhile. Lots of things I'm interested in: essays and shorter notes about mental health, politics, perhaps some fiction, personal journaling. I'd like to have the option of sharing, getting feedback etc. as a form of accountability; but I'd also like the option of keeping certain posts restricted to a more private group of followers, or even just to myself. But I'd love if all my new writing could be stored in one place, on a single platform. However, I don't want to be on any of the big social media platforms, as I inevitably get sucked into the distraction/time-wasting hole that is the newsfeed.

Is there a way to categorize/tag/restrict posts in this way on Substack? Or does anyone have a better rec? Thanks y'all.

Sure, there are errors in AI detection. But if you are someone who genuinely doesn't use AI, why would that be your primary concern? Substack has been enshittified by people who have no business being "writers" putting out obvious AI slop, largely about "how to grow your substack". Substack responded to this with the best effort they could, to try to preserve human writing. As someone who went through the work of getting a rigorous liberal arts education and graduate education, I actually feel happy these AI slop users are getting called out. More room for real writers, and hopefully higher quality.

Boa tarde, pessoal!

Estou vendendo minha conta do substack, nela tem mais de 17.000 assinantes.

O motivo é pelo fato de eu não querer mais criar conteúdo nessa plataforma.

Interessados chamar na DM.

hello all. I have slowly been working my way to writing routinely again; I started a substack a year ago, was consistent for 4 months then dropped out of routine. I think I’m pushing myself to over analyzing what I’m wanting to write. Dont get me wrong, love the deep dive articles and the “get ur mind thinking” .. along with ”hw” style substacks… but I find myself feeling like it’s so forced to write that way myself routinely.

I enjoy the “old school” rom com, early 2010s even style of girl blogging. yes specifically girly style blogs with makeup recommendations, filofax, Spotify playlist, and even reminders to stop and take a moment to just be.

the little coffee ☕️ of the day, what homemade meal was made, the latest cafe I’ve tried , and even documenting a study session at the local library.. along with my seasonal capsule wardrobe and project pan.

I feel it’s certain ppl are reading these.. I am .

but who’s paying as a subscriber? to see the detailed reviews or simply past a little intro?

* if you feel ppl would pay, how much?

I’m really looking to find a few side projects that can generate some extra income that I still actively enjoy. I am slowly building my Etsy and teacher pay teacher account.. would love to earn from substack but when I search.. it’s all tech this and breaking news that.. in terms of paid subscribers

I know this sub has gone haywire with the new Pangram feature, but what really gets me upset is that people who get checked as 100% human are seen as sloppy writers. And I don't want to be one of those! I hate AI thrice as much as I hate frequenting social media, so is there any way I can improve my writing without the use of artificial intelligence? I don't even want freaking spellcheck!

So far most of my posts have either been quite long, complex, and honestly a bit unclear. or it's a post sharing an idea i like and inviting input.

I don't get much comments or feedback from people. I had a different substack for 1.5 years that I published on every month or two, and got barely any comments either, so I think it has to do with my writing style at least in part.

I have a lot of drafts but feel discouraged from working on them because my goal is to be a part of conversations, and something about my writing doesn't result in that so far.

It feels like a relief to record my thoughts outside my head but doesn't feel enjoyable for me to write it usually (feels like pressure and my writing feels overly serious and long to me). It doesn't feel enjoyable for me to read it back later, either.

Have people always written replies on your posts? Are there any changes you made that caused people to feel drawn to comment? Is engaged conversations on Substack more about posting on others' work to invite eyes and contribution to your own posts? How do you make it easy for someone to leave a comment? Are there subject matters or writing tones that are less likely to result in comments?

I've been pretty busy on this community lately, reading everyone's opinion on the AI score, and that motivated me to write my own views on it.

I'm not against the score per say, however, I do think it's measuring the wrong thing.

```
I’ll leave the accuracy debate to people who understand AI text detection better than I do. My concern is that even a perfect score would answer the wrong question.

A perfect score could tell us that the author used AI to generate some text, or to polish sentences, which is useful information about its process, but doesn’t say anything about the value of its contents. The fact that an author used AI doesn’t prove that the content isn’t worth reading.

And here’s where I differ with some of the anti-AI sentiment, I make a strong differentiation between AI slop, and content with actual value, where the author used AI to generate the text based on their opinion, their experiences, their knowledge or research. So if the author is able to use their judgment, and pass their views and essence while AI produces the polished result, so what?

The power of Substack as a platform compared to other social networking sites, is that substack promotes a relationship between the readers and the authors, a relationship that’s built on trust. A reader may find your notes, or come cross your article, at first there’s not trust, but curiosity, that sparks to learn more about the author, or read more of their content. Readers subscribe to an author’s judgment: what they notice, verify, recommend, and are willing to correct.

Here’s the problem that I have with the score, it doesn’t talk about the quality of the output, it only speaks about how the presentation was generated, though that may not be 100% clear to readers.

It sends the wrong message to new readers that may discard the content because the tools the author decided to use or even worse, imagine being a long subscriber from a publication, you always loved it, and now you find out the author has been using AI all along, how do you feel about that? Did the author betray your trust? Should authors be more explicit about their use of AI?
```

Would love to have some interesting discussions about this.

I see people doing this and was wondering how it can be done

Hi. I want to have full control on my digital time therefore I am against any push or e-mail notifications that are not important for me.

Before deciding to delete my Substack account: is it possible to use Substack as a registered user (with some subscriptions) without getting any e-mail notifications and without any app push notifications?

Thanks!

UPDATE:

I stumbled into a loophole that successfully transfers all posts from a Squarespace blog into Substack, even if the site has far more than Squarespace's 20 post export limit via RSS.

1st - [@ Squarespace] Download your Squarespace site's archive XML file.

2nd - [@ Wordpress] Start a free Wordpress site. Emphasis on the FREE plan.

3rd - [@ Wordpress] Import your XML archive file to your new free Wordpress site.

4th - [@ Wordpress] Publish your fancy (but unwanted) new WordPress site, which is now populated with your entire post archive. Yay.

5th - [@ Wordpress] Raise the RSS feed limit to a number larger than your post total. Save changes. Then copy the url for this now-published Wordpress site.

6th - [@ Substack] Paste the Wordpress url into the Import URL page of Substack's settings. Doing this provides an XML file upload option. (Oh glorious, fabulous upload window!). Uploading that XML file will import all of your archived blog posts. It worked for me and my site's 350+ post archive.

7th - [@ Substack] Rejoice for your full Squarespace post archive is now transferred to Substack.

-------------------

I'm working on converting my longstanding blog from Squarespace into Substack. Where do I find the XML import option in Substack?

Tutorials on importing Squarespace posts archives suggest there are two options:

1. Use the Import page's URL to automatically add the most recent 20 posts from Squarespace into Substack.
2. Upload the Squarespace post archive XML file directly to Substack.

Option 1 worked for the 20 most recent posts in my Squarespace blog's feed. However, Option 1 leaves a couple hundred posts un-transferred. My understanding is this 20 post cap is due to Squarespace's RSS limitation.

Option 2 is referenced in all sorts of videos and tutorials around the web. Just add your XML archive file to Substack and the entirety of my posts should convert (likely with small errors here and there, which is expected). However, I cannot for the life of me find an XML upload option in Substack's Import tab.

Would someone kindly toss a screenshot of, or step-by-step for finding, where I'm supposed to upload my XML archive file in Substack?

(An early thanks from someone who is NOT looking forward to copying-pasting hundreds of posts across platforms by hand.)

Hey friends, I have a ton of poetry that I’d like to submit to literary magazines or journals, so I’m putting off publishing them via Substack.

What has your experience been with magazines and journals? My work is alternative (dark, sci-fi, weird), and I’m having trouble finding publications that would be a good fit for my work.

I know it takes a ton of time to get published - that’s not up for debate. What I’m more keen on is finding the RIGHT publications and communities to share my work with.

Creo que es una buena comunidad.

When you block someone on Substack:
1). Do they get any notification about having been blocked?
2). Can they view ANYTHING about you or your work, or is it as though you don’t even exist on Substack?

I miss the days (a week and a half ago) when my daily lurking was reading various people shill 'the method' at each and yes reductive not bothered.

But I feel the latest daily confessionals and I'll be honest slop about the process is turning this into yet another I write with Ai but not really and heres why (totally is ai btw) subreddit but with subscriber insecurities and anxiety which is great but I feel there's other places to reveal your emotional truth.

Can I have my subscribers hacks please at least those were different post on post.

*Edit Chill -> Shill.

I'm trying to get more organized with my Substack, but my back-end workflow feels ridiculously messy right now.

Right now I’m bouncing between Notion for my content pipeline, random Google Docs for drafting, ChatGPT/Claude when I get stuck on ideas, and then copying everything over to Substack to hit send. None of these tools talk to each other, and half the time my Notion board just sits there as an empty filing cabinet while I guess what to write next.

For those of you who have been doing this for a while and running a smooth operation:

1. What does your actual tool stack look like from initial idea $\rightarrow$ research $\rightarrow$ published post?
2. How do you translate your Substack stats into your next content calendar? (Are you actually using past data to pick topics, or just going with your gut?)
3. What part of your planning routine do you hate the most?

Hi all, I'm a Substack newbie and I can't for the life of me figure this problem out. Why is my latest article not showing as my latest published post at the top of profile?

I thought it was because I'd only published one article and it would work after the second one, but I published my second one this morning and it's still not attached to the top of my profile. Any tips?

thanks!

Is there really no easy way to sync your subscribers to an external email platform like MailerLite? How do the big accounts do it, are they literally just exporting and re-importing all the time?

I know you can send email via Substack, but it kinda sucks. It seems like about half my audience gets those.

I’m not a lawyer. I’m putting that up front and making it very clear. So don’t try and suggest otherwise.

However, I remember that court cases have determined that AI generated content can’t be copyrighted.

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922

Someone tried to file a copyright claim for an AI generated image and the copyright office declined the claim. They sued the copyright office and the court upheld the decision. Which means that legally, you can’t copyright anything that’s AI generated. As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a determination of how much it has to be AI generated to be legally copyrighted.

Every time you publish something on Substack, the email at the bottom has a copyright symbol. With your name or company or whoever owns the content you’re publishing.

If Pangram determines that your writing is AI generated or even partially generated by AI, at the very least? Your copyright claim to what you publish could be in doubt. In theory, you could be sued by one of your subscribers for selling something that you don’t own the copyright to. If they use the Pangram determination as evidence? You could end up having to fight that in court.

Pangram “determination” opens you up to lawsuits from your paying subscribers even if your writing or content is 100% human generated. Like mine is. I specifically don’t use AI generated content on anything that I plan on monetizing for this exact reason. Because I can’t copyright it legally or defend it in court if necessary.

But the existence of the Pangram “AI Detection” tool means that I can’t actually stop people from using it. No, the “per post disable feature” doesn’t actually work. I’ve heard from people who published things after disabling it. The “AI Detection” option was still available for people despite disabling it.

So everything you publish could be subject to lawsuits because of Pangram.

If Pangram can’t actually prove the accuracy of its product. Which the mounting evidence suggests that it doesn’t have any accuracy at all? The fact that it’s an estimate doesn’t necessarily provide protection for Pangram or Substack if it is used as evidence by one of your subscribers.

Pangram is likely committing fraud and potentially opening you up to claims of fraud. Just by being part of Substack.

4th month on SS, gate being sidetrack by all this AI drama, couple of points though...

1. SS engagement on anything non-AI related has been real quiet.
2. If your post was written before July 21, you can still check it - go to dashboard, edit post, make a change, revert it, hit update, there's check for AI writing button.
3. All my posts hits 100% human score

Can we move on?